Charmed and Dangerous Read Free

prisoner.
    “Maddie,” he roared. “That’s enough!”
    She froze and stared into his potent dark eyes. A spark of sexual awareness, so intense it left her stunned, surged between them.
    “How . . . how,” she stammered. “Do you know my name?”
    “I thought you were Cassie,” he said.
    “Oh.” She blinked at him, letting this information sink in. “Let me guess, you two were playing some kind of kinky sex game in the park and it got out of hand?”
    “What?” He frowned.
    “Cassie’s into all that red hot pursuit stuff. You must be her new boyfriend.”
    “No, I’m not.”
    They were pressed chest to chest, their lips almost touching. He had an unusually complicated mouth. The outer shape was angular and uncompromising, like some sort of hardware store tool, but at the same time the actual flesh of his lips appeared smooth, soft and inviting. His mouth, she decided, had a personality all its own.
    “Then who are you?” Maddie snapped, almost as mad at herself as she was at him.
    “David Marshall. FBI.”
    FBI? At least that explained the gun. What kind of trouble was her twin in now?
    Cassie had told Maddie to meet her in the park at eight-fifteen because she had big news to share. Maddie had scheduled her morning run to coincide with the rendezvous. But her twin wasn’t at the appointed spot and this bearish man claiming to be with the FBI was. The whole thing smelled fishier than the Trinity River.
    “Let me see some identification,” she said.
    “Only if you promise not to knee me in the groin when I turn you loose.”
    “All right,” she agreed warily, even though she had no intention of keeping her promise if she felt threatened in the slightest.
    He released her hands and pushed up on his knees. Maddie lay on her back, head cocked, watching his every move and making sure he didn’t go for his gun. Just because he said he was FBI, didn’t mean he was FBI.
    As she studied his face, she realized he was rather good-looking in a rugged, unkempt sort of way. He was tall and muscular with a granite jaw and chiseled cheekbones that oddly enough, lent him a sensitive air. He wore his sandy brown hair clipped short and spiked up. She kind of liked the kingfisher thing he had going on, not that she was really noticing. His nose was neither too big nor too small for his face, but it crooked slightly to the left at the bridge as if he’d used it once or twice to stop an irate fist.
    He got to his feet and held out his hand to help her up.
    She hesitated.
    He just kept standing there, hand outstretched.
    Reluctantly, she accepted his offer of assistance and he hauled her to a standing position. Once on her feet, she immediately turned away from him.
    “Hold on,” he said, his skin still branding hers.
    “What is it?” she snapped.
    “You’ve got mud on your clothing.”
    And then, before she knew what he was doing, he reached out and briskly brushed off her bottom.
    The touch of his palm against the smooth stretchy Lycra of her workout pants sent a shower of sexual sparks scorching up her backside. Maddie swallowed hard against the storm of sensation flooding her body.
    Seriously dangerous stuff.
    “There you go.” He released her arm. “All dusted clean.”
    She gulped and her stomach lurched because her butt kept tingling long after his hand was gone. “Your badge?” she said, determined not to let him distract her.
    “I’m getting to it.” He removed his badge from his coat pocket and flashed it in front of her face.
    She held out her palm.
    “You wanna hold it?”
    “Yes.”
    He rolled his eyes, but handed it to her. She traced a finger across the emblem. The badge winked goldly at her in the shaft of hopeful sunlight struggling through the cloud covering. It looked real enough, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d heard about psychos who posed as law enforcement authorities and committed crimes.
    “You won’t mind if I call the local FBI division and check you